THE
BLIND AMERICAN

JANUARY ISSUE -- 1962

INKPRINT EDITION

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN BROTHERHOOD FOR THE BLIND
A CHARITABLE AND EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION

2652 SHASTA ROAD BERKELEY 8, CALIF.

THE BLIND AMERICAN

Published monthly in Braille and inkprint and
distributed free to the blind by the American
Brotherhood for the Blind, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek,
President. National headquarters and editorial
offices at 2652 Shasta Road, Berkeley 8, Calif.

"A NEW PUBLIC WELFARE PROGRAM"

"To help those least fortunate of all, I am recommending a new public welfare program, stressing services instead
of support, rehabilitation instead of relief, and training
for useful work instead of prolonged dependency."

So spoke President John F. Kennedy in his January State
of the Union address before the opening session of Congress. His few suggestive words on the broad topic of welfare foreshadowed a variety of more detailed and explicit proposals to be submitted in subsequent weeks to the legislature and
the nation.

Well before the delivery of the President's message,
however, many of the main lines of welfare policy and
program to be pursued by his Administration in the coming
year had already been hammered out and made public through
a series of official or quasi-official documents and reports, Two of the most significant of these studies were
authorized by HEW Secretary Ribicoff last year with a view
toward making recommendations to Congress in all major
areas of the welfare system. The report of an Ad Hoc Committee on Public Welfare, composed of 25 persons broadly
representative of social welfare leadership both public
and voluntary, was released in September. A second report
by George K. Wyman, a former Assistant Commissioner of
Social Security and presently Executive Director of the
Los Angeles Region Welfare Council, made its appearance in
August.

(A third study, more independent but in the long run
of perhaps still greater influence upon policy, is discussed below. It is "Public Welfare: Time for a Change," a report by Elizabeth Wickenden and Winifred Bell of the
Project on Public Services for Families and Children,
prepared under sponsorship of the New York School of Social
Work of Columbia University.)

Report of the Ad Hoc Committee

The 25-person Ad Hoc Committee based its numerous
concrete recommendations upon the premise that drastic
changes in American society and economy over the past
quarter-century have deeply altered the responsibility of the public welfare system and the needs which it should
be designed to meet. "Public welfare must contribute to
the attack on such problems as dependency, juvenile delinquency, family breakdown, illegitimacy, ill health, and
disability; reduce their incidence, prevent their recurrence, and strengthen or protect the vulnerable or helpless
in a highly competitive world," the report asserted. Welfare measures could no longer be limited to the palliative
efforts of old-fashioned relief: "Public welfare should
be a positive, wealth-producing force in society. It must
be more than a salvage operation, confined to picking up
the debris from the wreckage of human lives."

In this new and affirmative welfare perspective, the
Ad Hoc Committee observed, the foremost role must be that
of the national government. "The scope, the intensity,
and the cost of the nation's social problems demand vigorous national leadership in working toward their solution.
There must be a consistent and positive policy in using
the resources of the federal government to raise the level
of assistance and rehabilitative services in public welfare
throughout the country, to establish and maintain standards
for assistance and services, and to support the analysis
of welfare needs and ways of meeting them," the report
stated.

In the modern field of welfare, according to the
committee, "there are few problems that are strictly
local, state, or even regional." While state and local
government are of course intimately concerned, "needs that
are nation-wide in scope demand national attention." In
particular this was said to be true of those problems
centering in the family unit: "A new and dynamic approach
to strengthening family life in America must supply the [main] dimension of social welfare endeavors in the 1960's.
The recommendations of this report are designed to reinforce
and support family life through rehabilitation, prevention
and protection. They are also intended to reduce the wide
disparities in the contributions made to this goal by welfare programs throughout the country."

The recommendations for improvement contained in the
Ad Hoc Committee's report were divided into a set of proposals for immediate action and another set of proposals
for long-range major revisions. Under the heading of "immediate steps" the following were listed:

1. Rehabilitative services to strengthen Aid to
Dependent Children: "aimed at reducing family breakdown
and chronic dependency and helping families become self-
supporting and independent".

2. ADC legislation: extending present provisions
relating to unemployed parents and foster home care, and
providing for coverage of disabled and unemployed fathers
living at home.

3. Measures for studying and dealing with the problem
of illegitimacy.

4. Federal participation in community work programs.

5. Improvement of care for children -- including
federal support for day-care services.

6. Earnings of youth on ADC--partially exempting
such earnings "to provide incentive for work and development of responsibility."

7. Removal of residence requirements for public
assistance: entailing "financial incentives to states to
encourage progress toward elimination of residence requirements as an eligibility factor for public assistance."

8. Safeguarding the principle of cash payment through
limited use of vouchers.

9. Extension of aid to the disabled--by including
temporarily and partially disabled persons in eligibility
for assistance.

10. Experimentation and progress in research and
demonstration.

Under the separate heading of "Proposals for Further
Action," the Secretary's Ad Hoc Committee recommended
these specific steps:

11. Assistance and rehabilitative services to
families--involving the creation of a "single category
of assistance" aimed at giving "service to the complete
family as a unit through intensified rehabilitative
services." The single-category concept was defined as
including those now receiving aid to dependent children
and aid to the permanently and totally disabled, as well as permitting states to include persons now covered by
state and local general assistance measures. (The
committee report made no mention of aid to the blind or
of old age assistance, both of which would presumably
remain as distinct categories under public assistance.)

12. Improving personnel for rehabilitative services.
The committee's discussion of this recommendation made
clear that it presages a "major attack" on the problem of personnel qualifications. Specifically, said the
committee, "the goal should be established that within 10
years, one-third of all persons engaged in social work
capacities in public welfare should hold masters' degrees
in social work" -- an objective which would call for
stepped-up federal grants to states and direct support to
accredited schools of social work.

13. A stronger role for basic child welfare services.

14. Provision for continuing program of research and
special demonstration projects.

The Wyman Report

The report submitted to Secretary Ribicoff by George
K. Wyman also presented specific recommendations for governmental action, both administrative and legislative,
which at many points parallel those of the Ad Hoc Committee but in other respects diverge considerably. Thus the Wyman
report also emphasized "the necessity, even the demand, for strong , active federal leadership in public welfare," and
underscored the urgency of measures to strengthen family
life and opportunities. Like the Ad Hoc Committee also,
Mr. Wyman called for a new aid program, which he designated "Family Aid and Services," to combine the present categories of ADC and Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled.
Both reports may be said to share a common concern for
welfare measures of a preventive and rehabilitative character, looking toward the reduction of dependency and restoration of productivity, as against what are usually called "relief" programs.

Notable in this respect is the introductory declaration
of the Wyman Report that "the time is ripe for positive
action to put into effect the fine principles of the 1956
Social Security Act Amendments to help needy people maintain
and strengthen family life, to attain self-care and to
achieve self-support. These principles are accepted as the
guide for the Department's public welfare program. But
they have never been put into full effect because clear
public understanding and support is lacking."

Another significant recommendation of the Wyman Report
(not explicitly contained in the Ad Hoc Committee report) had to do with medical care under social security. The Secretary of HEW, the report stipulated, should "use federal appropriations for research to study medical care under
public assistance, the extent to which it is meeting needs,
and be in a position to help states with medical care
programs, standards and quality of service."

Possibly most affirmative of all was Mr. Wyman's
recommendation of "incentives for employment"; namely,
that states be permitted "to provide incentives for children
and adults to accept employment by allowing the retention
of a portion of individual earnings for future identifiable
needs, thus meeting legal requirements to 'take into consideration all other income and resources' in determining
the grant of assistance." This proposal is, of course, an
extension to other aided categories of the exempt-earnings
principle already established for more than a decade in
Aid to the Blind.

Among other recommendations of the Wyman Report was
the controversial suggestion (not made by the Ad Hoc Committee) that states be permitted (or authorized) "to
establish Work for Relief projects for all employable
recipients, with statewide standards and local determination
of work project necessity."

The report also called for a reduction of state
residence requirements for all aided categories to a
permissible maximum of one year; use of vendor payments for
other than medical care "in proven cases of mismanagement
and social adjustment"; changing the name of the Bureau
of Public Assistance to the Bureau of Social Welfare; and
designation of the Deputy Commissioner of Social Security
as head of "a permanent Task Force to develop and coordinate
programs, policies and procedures between the Children's
Bureau and the Bureau of Public Assistance."

"TIME FOR A CHANGE": THE WICKENDEN REPORT

One of the most deeply thoughtful of recent inquiries
into the problems and prospects of American public welfare
appeared in print last month (December, 1961) under the
title "Public Welfare: Time for a Change." Prepared under the directorship of Elizabeth Wickenden with the assistance
of Winifred Bell, the report was the outcome of a year-long Project on Public Services for Families and Children sponsored by the New York School of Social Work of Columbia University.

As the project title indicates, the Wickenden study
was not concerned equally with all phases of welfare
assistance (as were the Wyman and Ad Hoc Committee reports)
but focused its attention on a particular area of public
policy: governmental welfare services for children and
their families. More specifically, its emphasis was on "the effect of federal policies under three separate but
related programs affecting families and children: public
assistance, child welfare, and welfare services concerned
with juvenile delinquency." Both in the scope and depth
of its scrutiny of the welfare scene, however, the Wickenden report carries important implications for all programs
of public aid, including those for the blind and the disabled.

Much of the distinctive character of the report
undoubtedly stems from the breadth of its sources and
resources. Supervised by Dean Fred DelliQuadri of the New
York School of Social Work, the study drew upon a special
advisory committee of nine prominent welfare authorities
plus five consultants for specialized areas. The central
procedure of the study was the preparation and distribution
of a detailed letter of inquiry to hundreds of welfare
experts throughout the country. Aimed primarily at stimulating reflection and opinion on basic issues (rather than
seeking quantifiable replies along scientific lines), the
inquiry was sent "to all state and many local commissioners
of public welfare; to all directors of national voluntary
organizations concerned with family and child welfare; to
all deans of schools of social work; and to a considerable
number of other persons in leadership positions in the
social welfare field. Altogether 349 letters of inquiry were sent out; 182 replies were received."

The comprehensive report which has resulted from this
survey (running to a total of 124 pages including appendices)
is divided into two sections, one of broad discussion of the
problem and another containing more detailed analysis of
the range of opinions and proposals received on specific
welfare questions. Something of the perspective governing
both sections of the report is indicated by the authors'
statement that "while the Project centered its initial
interest on the welfare needs of families and children. . .
this report has tended to approach their situation in the
context of a total public welfare policy."

The relevance of the study to all who are concerned
with the direction of public welfare policy -- whether as
clients, as workers or simply as responsible citizens --
is further underlined by the assertion that "the needs of any one segment of the population cannot be effectively met
except in their relationship to the needs of all others in
that population. Children belong to families and the
family, as our central social institution, encompasses all
individuals. Over-emphasis on any one age or condition
can only result in a distortion of the needs of all. To
the extent that all human beings are inter-dependent, to
the same extent public welfare policy must embrace the
needs, entitlements, and obligations of all."

Statement of the Problem

"Public welfare is the ultimate instrument of social
conscience in the modern world," declare the authors. "Yet today in America it is under attack from many sides.
Why?" Part of the answer to the controversy is seen to
lie in "the substantial absence of any common base of
understanding concerning its role in the social order." Everyone, whether participant or bystander, seems to have
a different notion of what that role should be and "few
will say an unqualified good word" on behalf of the
sprawling system of aids and services -- even while most
are prepared to admit that in some sense it is indispensable to the functioning of our society.

As a result of this confusion and misunderstanding,
complicated by sporadic changes in popular attitudes, the
uneasiness of the general public "tends to seek expression
in boil-like eruptions of rebellion on exposed points of
specific policy," the authors point out. In one year the
rebellion may find expression in demands for the release
of confidential assistance records; at another time the
cry may be for more severe residence requirements in order
to ward off the shiftless and vagrant.

"And now most recently the ancient Poor Law requirement of a 'work test' has been revived: assistance caseloads will disappear if applicants are obliged to show
their good faith by 'working out' the amounts they receive," the report continues. But all such desperate remedies
mistake the symptom for the cause: "In all of these
instances the responsibility for high welfare costs is
presumed to lie in some willful choice of the applicant
rather than in general social circumstances."

But it is not only the public and the beneficiaries
of the welfare system who argue about its nature, according
to the report: there is wide difference of opinion even
among those regarded as experts and professionals. In
general, the authors believe, this disagreement stems from "differing appraisals of the time factor in an evolutionary
process"; people may agree on the direction in which we are
moving but disagree on the rate at which we can or should
move. Thus it is at least as important to decide what
public welfare is in process of becoming as to know what
it has been in the past.

The Historical Evolution of Welfare

"Public welfare as we know it today," observes the
Wickenden report, "is an inevitable concomitant of modern
industrial organization" and therefore must be understood
within the context of its evolutionary history. In tribal
or localized societies few public provisions for welfare
are needed; the family or clan may be counted on to take
care of its children, its disabled members and its oldsters.
With the growth of modern socioeconomic development, marked
by industrialization and urban massing of populations, "casualties of social disorganization begin to appear," We see the process happening today in countries now moving
into industrial development: "slum squatter colonies
around the outskirts of sprawling cities; beggar children
in the streets; women cast adrift without social moorings;
bewildered old people who feel themselves robbed of the
dignity conferred by the old order; rebellious young people."

Faced with such conditions -- there as in our own
industrialized society -- people experience "a profound
uneasiness: part guilt, part fear. People will be heard
to extoll the values of the old society and deplore their
loss; they will relieve their own anxiety about social
upheaval by expressing their disapproval of its most obvious
victims," the report asserts. Gradually, however, nations
learn to cope with their new problems through organized
measures to alleviate miseries which once were taken care
of by family or tribe. The paradoxical dilemma in which
such nations are caught lies in the fact that "the very social change which creates new problems simultaneously
tends to raise the level of social expectation . . .
people find themselves running into new kinds of problems
at the very time when they are beginning to expect better
things from life."

The first step in the historical development of public
welfare is defined by the report as a "process of selective
limitation" -- i.e., the enactment of special measures
directed toward "certain groups in the population whose
claim to social protection is transparently obvious, most
typically children or persons with particularly anxiety-provoking disabilities such as blindness, leprosy, or insanity." Even for these selected groups, service is
restricted by a tendency to institutionalization": the
erection of islands of welfare such as orphanages, homes,
and rehabilitation centers in which a small number of the
needy may be aided at a high standard.

But at the same time, the authors note, welfare
history reveals "a companion pressure toward inclusive
minimal quaranttees" to all members of a given group.
These two processes, selective and universal, have
developed together in our own Anglo-American history,
notably in "the early provisions for selected groups,
largely under church auspices, followed by the inclusive
provisions of the Poor Law of 1601." This fact leads the
authors to put in a good word for the much-maligned Poor
Law: "Even though it is currently fashionable to denigrate the original Poor Law and its subsequent modifiers,
it stands as a major landmark in the history of public
welfare. For the first time, under the Poor Law, a minimum
floor of economic security was stipulated for an entire
nation . . . for the first time inclusiveness replaced
selectivity as a determinant in social welfare."

The subsequent historical development of public
welfare is viewed by the Wickenden report as a process of
continuous interaction and alternation between the two
principles of selective programming and universal minimum
guarantees. "It is difficult at times to tell which leads
and which follows. Selective programs tend to raise both
standards and expectations with a resultant demand for
universally applicable minimum protection. ... In fact
the adaptive capacity of public welfare may well be said
to depend to a considerable extent on its ability to adjust
at a new level of equilibrium between minimal protection
and selective pioneering when new needs and expectations
require it," the report maintains.

Welfare and the Social Standard

The level and quality of public welfare services in
any society is seen to depend fundamentally upon what the
Wickenden report calls the "prevailing social standard" --
the minimum level of protection that the society is able
and willing to guarantee. Thus "the public welfare
function in any sooiety consists in the furnishing by
government of such benefits and/or social services as are
needed to maintain this minimum standard for particular
individuals within the economic and ideological limits fixed
by its productive capacity, knowledge, and social philosophy."

The formula of the "social standard" embraces a host
of variables which are constantly in flux, forbidding static
solutions and dogmatic principles. Social expectations and
public responsibilities vary with time no less than do
living standards and economic conditions. But the Wickenden
report suggests that there is often a lag between the appearance of genuine human needs and the willingness of the public
to give them affirmative support along lines which break
with traditional mores and institutions.

"Everyone understands, for example, that a small child
needs adult protection and that, if he loses his parents,
substitute care must be assured. The helplessness of
persons in a condition of extreme debility due to age or
illness is also well understood," the report states. "But
the complexities of modern life produce many examples of
social handicap or inadequacy for which the measure of
social responsibility is far harder to fix.

"Consider, for example, the problem of the alcoholic
mother: is hers a situation which deserves help or censure?
And, if the latter, what about her children? Or what about
the discouraged young man who has lost his job and fled in
panic across state lines, leaving his wife and children to
the conscience of the community as expressed in its welfare
program? Should he be pursued by the police or encouraged
back to responsible parenthood by welfare workers? This
interaction between social responsibility and personal
capacity has baffled philosophers through the ages. . .
In the meantime public welfare, as the ultimate source of
social protection, must make its way through the maze of
public confusion and ambivalence as best it can."

The authors note that our national efforts to "set
limits on public responsibility" for welfare gradually
gave rise to objective criteria of selection which might
be as free as possible from political patronage or discretionary whim. "It was for this reason that the framers
of the Social Security Act adopted the categorical approach,
required that within these categorical limitations, benefits
be equally available to all eligibles, and gave individuals
the right of appeal from bureaucratic decisions." Although
elsewhere the report finds much to criticize in the categorical approach in assistance, it is emphasized that "these
were all requirements designed to reconcile the advantage
of a minimal guarantee with the need for selective responsibility and constituted a major forward step for their
time. ..."

Another "central dynamic" which the Wickenden report perceives to lie at the heart of the welfare system is the relationship between measures designed to relieve needs on
an individual basis and other measures designed to prevent the same needs. "Thus, for example, contributory social
insurance prevents dependency by anticipating the need for substitute income when people can no longer work while
assistance relieves needs that people are currently experiencing." The function of public welfare is primarily to
meet and relieve those current needs; the responsibility
of a society as a whole is to seek and find the longer-range answers of prevention and cure.

"This then is the basic social role of public welfare:
it fixes the minimum social standard which a particular
society is willing or able to tolerate and then proceeds --
by meeting it -- to reveal the extent to which other aspects
of social functioning fall short of meeting it . . . . The
number of children dependent on public welfare support
because they have been deserted by one or another of their
parents reveals a serious flaw in our pattern of family
functioning. In these situations one cannot either blame
or laud public welfare for picking up the pieces. It is
performing a necessary first aid and rescue function. In
the long run the social remedy must be sought elsewhere," the report declares.

Where Present Provisions Fall Short

For all its affirmative growth and permanent values,
according to the Wickenden report, the American public
welfare system today falls short of its potential promise
in three basic ways:

"1. Its help is not equally and universally available
to those whose economic and social condition falls below
the minimum level appropriate to a society of our productive
capacity and organizational complexity.

"2. It does not in many instances extend help in such
a way as to serve the best interests either of those helped
or the social organization as a whole.

"3. Its organizational and jurisdictional arrangements
do not lend themselves to the most effective and adaptive
policy development."

The principle of "universality" is said by the report
to demand the relaxation or elimination of all restrictions
upon eligibility which withhold services from those genuinely in need of them. Thus "we cannot honestly claim, for
example, that our social standard prevents the death of
children by reason of economic deprivation so long as a
child, ineligible for public aid because of residence
requirements, froze to death virtually in the shadow of
the Capitol last year," the authors maintain. "This was
not the result of a mistake but a policy, one of many
policies that constitute weak links in the protective
chain of what we like to consider an advanced social
standard."

On the issue of residence, the report argues that
state laws which presently require as high as five years'
residence as a condition of eligibility for assistance
are contrary to the public interest of the nation as a
whole: "In a country which requires a high mobility rate
to maintain its economic health and make needed economic
adjustments such restrictions are patently contrary to
the public interest. They inhibit desirable movement,
impose a social injustice on individuals who move --
however socially desirable their motivation -- and
endanger the whole concept of a federally-aided, state-administered public welfare responsibility."

Another welfare practice brought under attack by
the Wickenden report -- with, in THE BLIND AMERICAN'S
view, less justice as well as less justification -- is
the public assistance system of categories, which
places under separate titles such programs as Aid to the
Blind, Old Age Assistance, and Aid to Dependent Children. "Widespread social insurance has replaced the pension
concept of assistance with one which emphasizes individualization of treatment," the report declares. "Assistance has become less a 'right' to which certain groups
have earned special entitlement than an obligation on
society to keep its own protective devices in order. . .
Public assistance, if it is to set any sort of minimal
standards for individuals and society, should be equally
available to all who fall below that standard for reasons
that lie beyond their own control."

A further restriction on the principle of "universality" of assistance, according to the Wickenden report, is
that implicit in "moral judgments" as well as ethnic and
social prejudices which lead to the rejection or condemnation of various needy groups. "Several states have
approached the problem of illegitimacy by enacting laws
defining such homes as ipso-facto 'unsuitable' and hence
ineligible for the receipt of public assistance," the
report states. "But unless the child is removed from
that same unsuitable home by court order and placed in a substitute foster home . . . the home is rendered even less suitable by its lack of any legitimate source of
income. .. Fundamental in this situation is the
question of whether the responsibility of the state for
protecting the welfare of children can be effectively
challenged by public disapproval for the behavior of
their parents.

"Closely related is the question of prejudice
toward persons of minority status: Negroes, Puerto
Ricans, Mexicans, Indians and occasionally other
identifiable cultural or ethnic groups. Long-standing
discrimination and isolation from the center of social
acceptability tends to produce for those at the bottom
a compensatory sub-culture in which adaptation is achieved outside the norm of social responsibility. In
such situations illegitimacy and the defection from
responsibility of the father do not involve the same
degree of social onus as with the majority group. Once
again public welfare carries the burden of compensating
for a social failure it did not create, while public
censure readily fixes on the victims of social discrimination rather than on its source."

Still another source of restrictions attacked by
the report are those that "seem peculiarly designed to
perpetuate dependency." The most obvious example, in
the authors' view, is the limitation implicit in the
categorical title of the "permanently and totally disabled," which includes persons with a specified degree
of blindness. "Even liberally interpreted, the concept
of 'permanent and total' seems to assume a static condition which is consistent neither with current rehabilitative practice nor the rapid advances of modern medical
science," the authors point out. "Moreover, it is a very
poor public economy to deny aid to the very person who
can be helped -- through such aid -- to recovery and self-support."

In this connection, the Wickenden report calls
attention to "a most baffling problem in assistance
policy" -- namely, "how to encourage paid employment
under an eligibility standard which equates need and
resources." Noting that "as the recipient begins to
earn, his wages become a resource and he either ceases
to be eligible or his grant is reduced proportionately," the authors proceed to emphasize a point long familiar
to recipients of aid to the blind: "This is particularly
inhibiting in the case of people whose working capacity
and self-confidence have been limited by illness,disability and discouragement. They need not only the incentive of higher income but also the security of assistance to help them through the transition process." But
the authors reject the solution of a flat earnings exemption, long operative in Aid to the Blind, as "inflexible" and "contrary to the concept of individualization." Instead
they appear to favor a policy which would recognize "earnings as a factor in an individually developed rehabilitation plan, proceeding on a progressive basis toward self-support."

On the score of program limitations generally, the
Wickenden report expresses particular concern over the
inadequacy of the standards of assistance now employed.
Pointing out that these standards necessarily tend to settle "at a point below the lowest prevailing level" of the community, the authors voice strong apprehension that levels
of assistance may fall so far beneath community norms as to
damage seriously the health and self-respect of recipients.
Their conclusion is that "on an over-all basis our present
standards of assistance fall far short of any level which
could be considered logical in terms of average national
income or average living standards."

What We Can Do

Among the numerous constructive proposals for improvement of the welfare system set forth in the Wickenden
report, the following are of particular pertinence:

On assistance categories: "Public assistance should
be available to any individual or family whose actual or
available economic resources are insufficient to meet [the
minimum standard of economic and social security] as applied
to their personal needs and situation.

On residence: "Restrictions of eligibility based
solely on length of residence in a state or locality are
inconsistent with inclusive protection and should not be
permitted under a federally-aided program."

On assistance adequacy: "A reasonable level of
assistance benefits is a matter of social justice for those
like the needy aged who have already fulfilled their
obligation to society and a good investment of public funds
for those needing temporary help to regain their self-sufficiency."

Toward more flexible policies: "Public welfare policies should be sufficiently flexible to meet special as
well as average needs, especially when this will help to
restore a family to self-support or independent functioning."

On other social services: "Public social services for other groups whose social needs are not necessarily combined with economic dependency should be expanded on a selective
project basis . . ."

With respect to welfare administration, the Wickenden
report calls for "a coordinated public welfare responsibility at the federal level comparable to that of a state
public welfare commissioner." In particular, the report
recommends (along lines paralleling the Wyman Report) the
creation of "a new Office of Public Welfare or Office of
Family and Child Welfare" to include the responsibilities
now vested separately in the Bureau of Public Assistance
and the Children's Bureau.

THE RIBICOFF PLAN: A DOUBLE-FEATURE PREVIEW

The public welfare program which the Kennedy Administration will seek to bring into reality in coming months --
both through new Congressional enactments and administrative revisions -- was given advance disclosure by HEW Secretary Ribicoff in December and January by means of two
separate pronouncements. The first - a memo to state
welfare directors -- revealed a series of ten administrative
changes in welfare programs; the second, a letter to an
influential Senator, presented a set of nine legislative
proposals to be submitted later to Congress.

In announcing the Administration's proposed changes,
Secretary Ribicoff emphasized that his department's year-long review of programs had resulted in "a clear recognition of the fact that today the outlook of 1935 is not
up to date. Born of depression emergencies, the original
federal welfare legislation well met the problems of that
time, but the quarter of a century that has passed has
taught us many new things."

The government must now move, he said, toward two
primary objectives: "eliminating whatever abuses have
crept into these programs and developing more constructive
approaches to get people off assistance and back into useful roles in society."

Administrative Changes

The ten decisions on administrative changes, which
Secretary Ribicoff sent in December to all state public
welfare administrators, were heavily oriented toward
revision of the ADC program. "In addition to moving more
effectively against such problems as locating deserting
fathers and fraud," the Secretary wrote, "these administrative changes are designed to (1) promote rehabilitation
services and develop a family-centered approach, (2) provide children with adequate protection, support and a
maximum opportunity to become responsible citizens, and
(3) reshape our administrative structure so it may be more
helpful to the states in accomplishing these objectives."

Specifically, the ten steps were:

1. More effective location of deserting parents --
through the establishment of a special unit in state Public
Assistance agencies to be responsible for locating deserting parents of children receiving aid. Its principal
objectives will be "to reunite families whenever feasible
and to obtain financial support."

2. Administrative actions to reduce and control fraud.
Noting that the proportion of ineligible persons who recieve assistance is not more than 1.5%, the Secretary pointed out
that willful misrepresentation accounts for a still smaller fraction of the rolls. Nevertheless concrete actions were
outlined to identify instances of fraud and prevent their recurrence.

3. Allowing children to conserve income for education
and employment. Secretary Ribicoff observed that existing policies permit an eligible dependent child having income
to use it to meet stipulated current needs, but ordered
changes permitting the states also to exempt income to meet "appropriate future needs" -- such as those for education, medical services and preparation for employment.

4. Safeguarding the children in families of unmarried
parents -- through a series of special welfare services
centering around additional home visits and intensive casework assistance.

5. Safeguarding children in families in which the
father has deserted -- mainly through similar specialized
attention and services.

6. Safeguarding children in hazardous home situations
through "preventive and protective services" aimed at reducing threats to the physical and moral development of
children. "These families may have special problems such
as money mismanagement, or may have home conditions or
conduct by the parents that is likely to result in inadequate protection or neglect of the children. Such families
should be made a third group subject to the same standards
of intensive casework service, using the best available
personnel, that are established for the families whose
problems arise from unmarried parents or desertion," the
Secretary stated.

7. Improvement of state staff training and development programs. Pointing to "an alarming shortage" of
trained personnel in welfare posts, Secretary Ribicoff
called on the states to develop staff training programs
with federal financial assistance which will include both
in-service training and opportunities for professional
and technical education.

8. Developing services to families. Announcing that "the name of the Bureau of Public Assistance shall be
changed to the Bureau of Family Services," the Secretary
declared that "too much emphasis has been placed on just
getting an assistance check into the hands of an individual
... we must come to recognize that our efforts must
involve a variety of helpful services, of which giving a
money payment is only one, and also that the object of our
efforts must be the entire family."

9. Encouraging states and localities to provide more
effective family welfare services -- mainly through the
creation within the newly designated Bureau of Family
Services of a division to be called the Division of Welfare
Services, with the responsibility generally of working
toward the "prevention and alleviation of dependency among
aged, blind, and disabled persons." The new division will
absorb the functions of the former Division of Program
Standards and Development, the Secretary said.

10. Coordination of family and community welfare
services. The Secretary announced in this connection the
establishment of a new position of Assistant Commissioner
in the Social Security Administration, concerned with
directing the coordination of programs and the efforts of
community organizations in the welfare field.

Legislative Proposals

In a memorandum of January 5 to Senator Harry F. Byrd,
Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Secretary Ribicoff
outlined a set of nine legislative proposals which he said
would later be formally presented to Congress. They were:

1. "Provide for federal financial participation in
community work-training programs with adequate safeguards
to protect the health and safety of the individual and to
encourage the re-employment, re-training, and conservation
of skills of employable persons on the aid to dependent
children program."

2. "Provide for permitting the states to make protective payments to a very limited number of individuals
where the individual is having difficulty in satisfactorily
managing funds. Such protective payments could only be
made to some individual who had a direct interest in the
welfare of the recipient such as relative, neighbor, friend,
or person in a private or public welfare agency."

3. "Authorize additional federal funds to give the
states an incentive to provide services to rehabilitate
persons on welfare and to provide preventive services to
those who might otherwise come on the welfare rolls."

4. "Provide for increasing federal funds for child
welfare services including specific authorization for day
care of children of working mothers . . . [and requiring
the states] to extend their child welfare services to all
children in need of such services in the state."

5. "Provide for extending on a permanent basis the
provisions of the temporary law making available federal
funds for (a) children of unemployed fathers, (b) foster
family care where the child has been removed from the home,
and (c) increase of $1 in the federal financial care of
the aged, blind and disabled."

6. "Provide for the first time federal financial
participation in the assistance costs meeting the needs
of both parents of the needy child."

7. "Provide that the existing authority for 100%
federal funds for the training of employees be directed
to providing services to children in the aid to dependent
children program and the child welfare program."

8. "Establish an optional new single category for
the aged, blind, and disabled and for medical assistance
for the aged which may be substituted by any state for the
three present programs under the existing law."

9. "Provide for a number of other technical and
administrative changes which are designed to emphasize
rehabilitation and service to welfare recipients."

In concluding his memorandum, Secretary Ribicoff
declared that the legislative proposals he had outlined "can reorient the whole approach to welfare from an
eligibility operation to one in which the emphasis is on
rehabilitation of those on welfare and prevention ahead
of time. . . I believe this is the time to take leadership in making what will be a tremendous improvement in
our welfare programs which will greatly help to strengthen
family life and prevent continued dependency of many
families."

EDITORIAL: WHITHER THE NEW FRONTIER?

By the time of the President's State of the Union
address in January -- as the preceding articles serve to
demonstrate -- certain of the broad lines of the Kennedy
Administration's new welfare policy had begun to be apparent,
The forthcoming program will "stress," as the President put
it, "services instead of support, rehabilitation instead of
relief, and training for useful work instead of prolonged
dependency,"

Much of the substance of this broad directive -- as
implemented in the Ad Hoc Committee and Wyman reports, and still more authoritatively in the pronouncements of Secretary Ribicoff -- would appear to be affirmative and un-exceptionable. Few individuals on either end of the
administrative chain of welfare aid are likely to oppose
an emphasis (if that is what it is to be) upon vocational
rehabilitation and training, or a corresponding de-emphasis
of prolonged dependency and static relief measures.

Insofar as the new welfare policy leads to practical
translation of the high goals of self-support and self-care
promised under the 1956 Social Security Amendments (but
never yet delivered), it deserves the vigorous support and encouragement of all who are genuinely concerned with the
improvement of the welfare system. That this may indeed become one dimension of the New Frontier in welfare is
suggested by the introductory statement of Mr.Wyman's quasi-official report to the Secretary of HEW: "The time
is ripe for positive action to put into effect the fine
principles of the 1956 Social Security Act Amendments to
help needy people maintain and strengthen family life, to
attain self-care and to achieve self-support. These
principles are accepted as the guide for the Department's
public welfare program. But they have never been put into
full effect because clear public understanding and support
is lacking."

More specifically the apparent emphasis of the Administration upon rehabilitation and economic independence
will take on definite and progressive meaning if it moves
in another direction also advocated by the Wyman report:
that of providing "incentives for employment" to recipients
of public assistance by extending to other categories the
principle of exempt earnings which has been so successfully
pioneered in Aid to the Blind. Mr.Wyman's words on this
subject deserve to be underlined:

"One of the deterrents for public assistance recipients to accept employment is the interpretation of the law
that 'all income and resources must be taken into consideration' in determining the grant of assistance. It is human
nature for people to expect to receive some benefit from
their work effort. If they receive no net gain as compared
to sitting at home, they will do the latter."

And that, the Wyman report indicates, is exactly what
has happened; the penalizing of earned income under this
requirement plainly discourages recipients of aid from
taking the initiative in efforts to reduce their dependency.
"For a long time the Department construed the law very
narrowly because it didn't wish to encourage a pension
program in public assistance. Later regulations allowed
an employed recipient the cost of transportation expenses,
union dues, uniforms, etc., in computing his grant, but
since these are out-of-pocket expenses anyway there is no
net gain to the individual," the report points out.

The recommendation of the Wyman report refers specifically to ADC recipients, but it may well serve to reinforce the "incentive" principle wherever the paramount welfare
objective of self-support is applicable: "Therefore, as an
incentive to recipients to seek employment the Department
should change its regulations to permit mothers who have appropriate child care facilities available, and adolescent
youth particularly, to retain a part or all of their net
earnings for future identifiable needs. These needs include school clothing, books or tuition, better quality
clothing for office employment, cosmetics and other aids
to appearance in seeking better jobs, etc.," the report
proposes. "These changes in regulations should be disseminated widely in order to encourage recipients to take
employment and for better public understanding of the
purposes and objectives of the program."

This express recognition of the positive role of "incentives," in the form of realistic exemptions of
earned income, is potentially a step forward. But it is
to be noted that the income allowances referred to by the
Wyman report -- and now incorporated in the administrative
program changes ordered by Secretary Ribicoff -- are pinpointed "for future identifiable needs," rather than for
the improvement of current conditions, however pressing.
And it is, of course, in the immediate present, in the
ongoing effort to raise one's living standards and better
one's circumstances, that "incentives" have their most
direct reference. Yet neither present regulations nor
those anticipated under the Ribicoff plan permit recipients
to meet without penalty those of their current needs that
are not remunerated by the aid grant.

Moreover, even to provide for future contingencies
requires the possibility of accumulating resources; but at
this point recipients of welfare aid find themselves
frustrated by the arbitrary limitations of personal property
and resources universally imposed under the program. For
the incentive principle underlying exempt earnings to
become a meaningful reality, therefore, the states must
take action to liberalize their unrealistic restrictions
on the retention of personal property; and at the same time
the federal administration must make clear the genuineness
of its own conversion to the principle of incentive exemptions of earnings -- toward which, unfortunately, it has
shown a notable lack of enthusiasm ever since Congress
approved the principle over its strenuous opposition more
than a decade ago.

While this anticipated move of the Kennedy Administration's new welfare policy is generally a constructive
one, another of the President's terse phrases is (at least
in the absence of explicit definition) both less clear and
less promising. That is the phrase which expresses his
preference for "services instead of support." At bottom,
of course, financial support to the needy is itself a service, often the moat appropriate service of all. What
is ambiguous and worrisome about this phrase of the
President's is the implied suggestion that "non-supportive" or non-economic services may be expected to supplant the traditional economic basis of public assistance (and conceivably of vocational rehabilitation as well).

The operative word in the President's message is "stress." No one is likely to oppose an emphasis upon "rehabilitation instead of relief," nor even perhaps a
less happy emphasis upon "services instead of support." But if what is intended by the word "stress" is not simply
an indication of top priorities and preferred goals but the
active elimination or rejection of the stated alternatives,
then there is cause for concern. For a certain measure of "relief" surely remains an indispensable (if residual)
ingredient of public assistance for those whose economic
need is urgent and whose condition is irreparable. And a more substantial measure of "support" remains, for a
but as a wholly positive and desirable expression of that "social standard" so well described by the Wickenden report --
i.e., the minimum guarantee of security and health which a
a responsible society is able and willing to provide for all
its members.

It may be hoped that the Kennedy Administration will
not continue to stress "services," or anything else, "instead
of support" -- but that it will place its emphasis rather
upon constructive forms of support instead of short-sighted
policies inadequate or destructive of that purpose. All this renewed emphasis upon services, which so
pervades the official and quasi-official pronouncements
summarized above, has other dubious features as well. The
kinds of services which seem generally to be contemplated --
mainly those associated with individualized casework such
as diagnosis, counseling, adjustment, and the like -- have
undeniable merit in certain places and certain programs.
But their merit is not universal and rarely paramount. The
stubborn fact which no amount of professional sophistication
can push aside is that the overriding deprivation faced by
many recipients of public assistance is neither psychological nor physical but economic and sociological . Specifically, it results from absence of employment and of opportunity for employment. Nor is there anything novel in this
situation. "In the early days of World War II," as David
S. French has pointed out, "social workers saw persons whom
they had not been able to help through individualized casework services suddenly become self-directing, self-supporting individuals. The reason was simple. They were wanted in the economy."

No less plainly, many of those whom it is now proposed
to help through individualized casework services suffer
from an identical pestilence: they are not wanted in the
economy. Particularly is this true of those minority-group
members who comprise the bulk of the caseload in such
programs as ADC (where, paradoxically, the push for "services" is most adamant). Their need is dominantly and unmistakably for jobs, and for the opportunities and skills
which will open the gates of employment to them. Their
need for other services -- however individualized, professionalized, or sympathetic -- is entirely incidental and
minimal.

Indeed, it is not too much to say that the conventional
services of casework, misapplied to such instances of hard
physical and economic want, may often be negative and even
actively destructive in their effect. What is the relevance
of orientation" and "adjustment" services for, say, the
Negro father who cannot find work? Is it to teach him
resignation and polite submission to a nomadic second-class
destiny? And what of the young blind person who finds himself the victim of a similar, if less conspicuous, discrimination? Is he to be "oriented" to an acceptance of the
sheltered workshop as his predestined fate?

This is not, let it be plainly stated, in any sense
an "attack" upon the established concept of casework
services, the values of which are immense and permanent.
It is intended rather as a caution against uncritical
acceptance of the retrogressive dogma which lurks behind
such glib expressions as that of "services instead of
support." For if there is much to be said for services,
in their proper place and perspective, there is no less to
be said for support in its own rightful place -- more precisely, for those constructive forms of economic support
which stimulate and pave the way to ultimate self-support.

BLIND TEACHERS HOLD SECOND CONFERENCE

At the request of many who had participated in the
first Conference on Exchange of Ideas and Techniques for
Blind Teachers and Student Teachers (see THE BLIND AMERICAN,
May 1961), a second day-long conference was convened in
Los Angeles on December 2 under auspices of the University
of Southern California's School of Education.

General Manager of the teachers' conference was Jack
Swanson, a teacher at Hawthorne (California) Intermediate School. Co-chairmen for the morning and afternoon sessions were Dr. Isabelle L. D. Grant, famed blind educator
who teaches at Washington Irving Junior High School in
Los Angeles, and Miss Onvia Ticer, a teacher in the Grant Elementary School, San Lorenzo, California.

The opening speech of the conference was delivered
by Dr. Wendell E. Cannon, director of teacher education
at U.S.C., who emphasized his university's policy of
considering only the individual applicant, his abilities
and suitability for his profession, rather than the
condition of blindness.

Delivering the keynote address, Dr. Grant pointed
out that the purpose of the conference was not to delve
into teaching methodology but to present a forum for the
exchange of ideas and techniques which experienced blind
teachers in the field had found practical and helpful
over the years. Through such exchange and communication
it was hoped that all teachers might gain confidence in
themselves as well as improve the efficiency of their
instruction, Dr. Grant said.

"Practical Techniques in Classroom Management" was
the subject of Miss Ticer's presentation as leader of
the morning discussion meeting. The handling of children
both individually and in groups, playground management,
the use of chalkboard and bulletin board, and cafeteria
duties were among the topics covered by the San Lorenzo
teacher, who gave particular stress to the importance of
preparation and organization in assuring the smooth
operation of any classroom.

Miss Ticer introduced the gathering to Ben Sanamatsu,
a San Jose resource teacher, who demonstrated various
techniques in the teaching of geometry and penmanship,
emphasizing the need for mastery of the latter skill by every blind instructor. An introduction to the group's
discussion of "Aspects of Individual and Group Discipline" was presented by Don Erickson, sixth-grade teacher of
Costa Mesa, California, who was unable to attend the
conference but submitted a tape recording of his talk.
Noting that the task of classroom discipline is part and
parcel of the teacher's preparation and his close attention to detail in every class procedure, Mr. Erickson
drew the conclusion that blindness by itself is not a
decisive factor in the maintenance of class discipline.

Robert Acosta, a young teacher currently in training
at Los Angeles State College, gave the conferees his
impressions of "Problems in Practice Teaching." A related topic, "Problems of a Beginning Teacher," was informatively treated by Miss Carol Hardacre, a novice teacher of second-grade classes in La Puente, California.

Main speaker during the afternoon session of the
conference was Richard Haley, director of teacher services
for the California Teachers' Association (southern section),
who focused his talk upon legal aspects of the employment
problem faoed by blind teachers. He pointed out that
blind teachers, like all others, are eligible for workmen's
compensation coverage and that in cases of classroom
accidents the fact of a teacher's blindness cannot by
itself be construed as "negligence." Mr. Haley's address
was followed by lengthy discussion centering on the wide-spread practice of discrimination against blind teaching
applicants by local school boards. Declaring that the
authority of such boards to make their own rules and
regulations is governed by consistency with state laws
(which in California contain no requirement of visual
acuity for receiving a teaching credential), Mr. Haley
voiced confidence that the mounting success of blind
teachers already on the job would eventually be sufficient
to end local discriminatory practices.

Implementing Mr. Haley's legal approach was a talk
by a young San Rafael (California) high-school teacher,
Arturo Baca, who analyzed his own year-long experience of "Interviews and Applications" -- and frustrations --
culminating in final success through the assistance of
the University of California teacher placement service.
He counselled young applicants against displaying attitudes
of immaturity or over-aggressiveness, pointing out that
interviewers are practical persons who genuinely desire
to know how a blind teacher plans to go about his job.

Dr. Grant, in a report on "The Blind Teacher in the
Teaching Profession -- a National Viewpoint," discussed
recent developments across the oountry with particular
reference to newly published studies on blind teachers
in the public schools.

Present at the conference, in addition to the 61
participating teachers and students, were representatives
from the American Brotherhood for the Blind and the
California Council of the Blind, along with numbers of rehabilitation officers, social workers and administrators. A full account of the conference proceedings may
be obtained by readers of THE BLIND AMERICAN upon application to Dr. Isabelle Grant, 851 West 40th Place, Los
Angeles 37; or to Miss Onvia Ticer, 63 Dutton Avenue,
San Leandro, California.

AURORA STILL LIGHTS THE WAY

(Editor's note: Mr. Capps is second vice president
of the National Federation of the Blind and past president
of the South Carolina Aurora Club of the Blind, a state
affiliate of the NFB.)

The South Carolina Aurora Club of the Blind, Inc.,
is proud to announce the inauguration this month of the
state's first PBX braille switchboard training program.
The bold new venture has been made possible through the
cooperation and assistance of the Columbia Council of
the Telephone Pioneers of America, together with the
Columbia chapter of the Aurora Club. With facilities
located at the Columbia chapter's new $30,000 Center,
the switchboard training program will be under the
direction of Miss Lois Bolton, the state's first PBX
braille switchboard operator and presently its only one.

Many readers will recall "the Lois Bolton Story" --
relating how Miss Bolton with the help of the Aurora
Club received training at the Minneapolis Society for
the Blind, subsequently found employment at Kohn's and
Company in Columbia, and has since been hailed by her
employer as the best switchboard operator his firm has
ever had.

A few months ago, when the new center of the
Columbia chapter was approaching completion, contacts
were made with the telephone company concerning the
possible installation of a braille switchboard in the
center. It soon turned out, however, that the financial
cost of installation and rental of this elaborate equipment would be prohibitive. At that point our club approached the Columbia Council of the Telephone Pioneers
of America -- an organization well-known for its interest
in various endeavors of the blind. In view of the special character of the Telephone Pioneers, we felt that a
braille switchboard project might well be found pertinent
to their concerns. Our thinking proved entirely correct,
as this fine organization of telephone employees with its
background of more than 20 years' service immediately
demonstrated keen interest in the new program. A few
weeks ago we were advised by the Pioneers' President,
J. W. Harris, that the group had unanimously voted to
finance our braille switchboard training program --
including not only its installation but also rental and
maintenance of the switchboard. Jubilation reigned
supreme in the Aurora Club -- and still does.

As evidence of the excellent opportunities this type
of training affords to blind persons, it may be noted
that Kenneth Jernigan, former NFB vice-president who is
director of the Iowa Commission for the Blind, has successfully placed no less than six blind persons within two
years as braille switchboard operators. We believe that
the potential opportunities in our own state are no less
than those of Iowa. Under the skilled direction of Miss
Bolton, the Aurora Club looks forward to an ever-expanding
program of training and employment in this promising new
line of enterprise for the blind.

"The rung of a ladder," as someone has said, "was
never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot
long enough to put the other a little higher."

BROTHERS ... & OTHERS

Blind Strikers Sign Up with AFL-CIO. Blind sheltered workshop employees of the St. Louis (Mo.) Lighthouse,
on strike for improved wage and working conditions, recently turned to organized labor for help in their campaign,
according to a news report in the St. Louis POST-DISPATCH
(November 26, 1961). About 75 of the Lighthouse workers
were said to have joined the International Leather Goods,
Plastics and Novelty Workers' Union of the AFL-CIO.

The blind workers' strike was the outcome of long
and futile efforts by employees to gain the ear of Lighthouse officials for their petitions, the newspaper
indicated. "A Shops Progress Committee, established
three years ago to represent the employees before the Lighthouse board of directors, has had little success in
obtaining better working conditions or settling matters
of job security and wage rates in discussion," according
to a spokesman for the sheltered workers.

Lighthouse employees were said to have sought the
help of the leather-workers union after a blind worker
in the shop was discharged for refusing to work overtime.
Subsequent efforts by the union to gain approval for a
union election in the Lighthouse, however, were turned
down by the National Labor Relations Board.

Wesley Johnson, president of the Lighthouse board,
reportedly said the board had decided it cannot enter
into a collective bargaining agreement with a union
because the board is "not empowered, as a non-profit
corporation, to delegate any responsibility for operation
of the agency. To recognize the union would not accomplish a thing except to take money out of the workers'
pockets for union dues," the official stated.

Are there still any who would like to argue that "no one is opposed" to the right of blind people to
organize?

"Riesel Named to President's Committee". Victor
Rlesel, widely syndicated newspaper columnist who was
blinded five years ago by an acid-hurling assailant, was
recently appointed by President Kennedy as vice-chairman
of the President's National Committee on Employment of
the Physically Handicapped. Riesel, whose New York-
based columns focus upon exposures of alleged labor
racketeering practices, will serve under the continuing
chairmanship of General Melvin M. Maas.

"New Policy on Recordings". Reprinted from the
NEWSLETTER of Recording for the Blind, Inc.: "With some
16,000 blind students in the elementary and secondary
schools this year -- a number expected to increase to
over 17,000 next year -- it is obvious that the demand
for recorded textbooks is increasing to a point where no
one organization can possibly handle it all. The Executive Committee of Recording for the Blind has therefore
recommended that after this winter we should limit our service to what we can do efficiently and well -- that
we should offer primarily a quality program in higher
education -- for high school students preparing for
college, for blind college students and for blind adults
in education or professional training. Therefore we
shall discontinue recording books for grade school use.
The only exception to this will be our recording of
books for blind children in the Connecticut public
schools, which we shall continue under special arrangement with the Connecticut State Board of the Blind."

"Survey of Blind Technical Aids". An international
survey and analysis of technical devices designed for
the education, rehabilitation and personal aid of blind
persons has recently been begun by the American Foundation for the Blind as a result of urging by the World
Council for the Welfare of the Blind and the American
Foundation for Overseas Blind.

Planned to culminate In an international conference
on technical devices this coming spring, the global
survey of "success and failure in efforts to alleviate
the effects of blindness upon an individual" is said by
the AFB to arise from the pressing need for an efficient
system of "international exchange and cooperation" in
the field of technical aids.

The project reportedly has been made possible
through grants from the U.S. Department of Health,
Education and Welfare, the Irene Heinz Given and John
LaPorte Given Foundation, the Howe Press of Perkins
School for the Blind, and the Gustavus and Louise
Pfeiffer Researoh Foundation, Inc.

What about $100 Bills? A new device said to be
capable of identifying the denomination of bills up to
$20 -- thus hopefully freeing blind merchants from
dependence upon the honesty of their customers -- has
been perfected by a Texas inventor, according to an
item in LISTEN. Produced by Surber Electronics Corporation of Wichita Falls, Texas, the "Surber Teller" reportedly fits on desk or counter and is simple to
manipulate. After the operator wraps the bill around a special plate, inserts the plate in a machine and twists
a knob, he holds four fingers over a set of four plunger
buttons. If the number one button pops up, the bill is
a $1; number two button means a $2 bill, number three $5,
and number four $10. If all four buttons pop up, the
inventor promises, the bill is a twenty.

Blind Rehab Training Program. America's Second
college program designed to prepare graduate students
for employment in the rehabilitation of the blind and
visually impaired was inaugurated last fall at Western
Michigan University in affiliation with the Veterans
Administration hospital at Hines, Illinois, according
to a report in the BVA BULLETIN (Publication of the
Blinded Veterans Association). The first such program
was instituted at Boston College a year earlier.

Operating under a grant from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Western Michigan VA program expects
to accommodate 12 graduate students per year in two
semesters of studies, followed by a semester in clinical
training at the rehabilitation center of the Hines VA
hospital. On completion of their training students will
receive master's degrees as physical orientation and
mobility specialists for the blind.